The SEM Guide to Using ChatGPT (In The Most Unique Way Possible)

There’s always something new to talk about in marketing – you know, like the newest bit of tech that you, your colleagues, and the rest of your LinkedIn newsfeed can’t get enough of… until you simply have had enough (sorry, Google voice search).

But there’s one trendy piece of technology at the moment with a lot of noise that just isn’t simmering down.

You got it: it’s ChatGPT.

But for starters, why IS everyone talking about it?

For some perspective, let us tell you three (really) short stories:

It took Netflix two and a half years to hit one million users.

It took Twitter two years to hit one million users.

It took ChatGPT five days to hit one million users.

And that, folks, is the fastest ever user adoption of technology on the planet today.

As a result of this early adoption, it forced other technologies to release their versions of the same thing and jump on the latest buzz with simulated human conversation. So, this meant us saying hello to Bard from Google, and LLaMA from Meta – whether they were up to scratch or not.

Could they have waited? Sure. Would that mean ChatGPT would soak up the entire market share in the meantime? It absolutely would.

Making the most of ChatGPT in your business

One thing we know from that ultra fast acquisition of users is that, well… it’s a tool that’s being used. And it’s something that businesses, as well as specific departments, can use to work more efficiently. And if you’re sitting here reading this, our guess is that you’re in marketing.

If you missed our recent webinar with Gerald Murphy telling us how to uncover unique SEO capabilities with ChatGPT, 1) yes, you did miss out, but 2) you’re in luck because we’re spilling the beans right here.

Like the webinar itself, we’ll use this post to answer key questions in the topic that might be on your mind:

• What do you ask ChatGPT to get the best output?
• How can using an extra layer of intelligence with AI take you to the next level?
• How can you maximize your content using AI and your own resources?

How to best use ChatGPT as an SEM

Let’s dig into how you can leverage ChatGPT in the most unique way possible as an SEM.

ChatGPT prompts for SEMs

Whether you haven’t used ChatGPT before or you’ve not quite nailed it yet, understanding the best prompts for ChatGPT and improving how you ask for information will save you a lot of time.

The better the prompts, the better the outputs.

Here are 7 tips that might just help you with your ChatGPT prompting:

Tip #1: Ask it questions as if it was a person

Start your prompt with an actionable phrase like “Write a…”, “Tell me about…”, “How to calculate…”, then give all the context you can. This context could include:

• The type of content you want (eg. meta description, FAQ section, or a brief summary)
• A keyword or key search terms you are targeting
• A call to action
• A character/word count (although, ChatGPT doesn’t have a great rep for this)

Whether you want to add your “please” and “thank you”s, that’s entirely up to you.

Tip #2: Ask it as if it were a specific person

Yep, that’s right – ChatGPT can be whoever – or whatever – you want it to be. This works well when you appeal to specific personas, or understand more about those personas as the content becomes more tailored to them.

To get this kind of output and information, use simple prompts like “Act as if you are…” or “You are an expert in…”.

Again, you want to include the keyword you want to target in the same query. Here’s an out-of-this-world example:

You can also turn it around a bit with a prompt like, “Explain [topic] to me as if I am [persona or a specific character]” for educational value and training purposes.

One of our favorite examples? “Explain this to me like I’m a five year old”. This is ideal when you’re new to a topic, or trying to get your head around something that’s quite (or very) complex.

Tip #3: Get technical when you’re not technical

Now, for some more advanced ChatGPT prompts – we’re talking techy.

The truth is, you can really benefit and work more efficiently if you start to understand – and use – the more technical aspects of the software you use. This could include things like:

• Regex Expression
• Google Sheet formulas
• Excel macros
• Translations

And yes, ChatGPT can do that for you. You don’t even have to know or be familiar with the language that comes out of it, you can just copy and paste. (Phew).

The beauty of this more technical output from ChatGPT is that it is a binary use case, which means that it will work or it won’t. Whereas, with its content output, you have to remember its 18 month lag in information and how it might not be entirely accurate as we mentioned earlier.

Tip #4: Use frameworks alongside your prompts

Marketing has a vast number of acronyms, doesn’t it? And another fantastic fact about ChatGPT is that it can understand these acronyms and action them.

Let’s take these three marketing frameworks as an example:

• AIDA: Attention, interests, desire, action
• PAS: Problem, agitate, solution
• BAB: Before after bridge

In your prompt, specify the framework you’d like the output to use – along with all the other context we’ve spoken about.

In the example below, we ask for the BAB framework to be used, but also specify we’d like to be asked questions too so we can further enhance our content with relevant materials, answering questions before the target audience has even asked them.

Tip #5: Make your A/B tests the best

Thinking about digital marketing-first frameworks in particular, let’s take a look at how you can use ChatGPT to perfect your Responsive Search Ads (RSAs).

A really effective prompt to encourage and inspire other ad variations is “Create two Google Ads for A/B test for [topic]”. But don’t just stop there, ask ChatGPT to explain why these ads would make a good test, like this:

Asking ChatGPT follow-up questions like “explain why you did this” is something that should be replicated beyond your ad campaigns, because it makes the output more meaningful and will inspire you to write something even better.

Tip #6: Watch out for prohibited content

Due to the fact that anyone of any age can get their hands on ChatGPT if they wanted to, there are some restricted keywords that could ruin your AI strategy.

Considered a controversial topic, electronic cigarettes make ChatGPT output a little more complicated.

Tip #7: Don’t give up the day job

We mean it – ChatGPT is not about to take over your department. Even the basics can go wrong with ChatGPT, so never take an output as 100% correct.

If you use ChatGPT for keyword research, for example, you’ve got to remember that it only uses keywords in its own database. There’s no prioritization by monthly search volume, keyword difficulty, or competition level – and these things should make a big difference to the keywords you go after. (Cough cough… Similarweb has got them though, as well as the freshest data out there.. cough).

So please, don’t rely on ChatGPT as a single source of truth, and please keep up the weekly team meetings, the brainstorming sessions, and the solo research. This will inspire your prompts further and get you even more creative outputs, because without you guys, ChatGPT is quite limited. We’ll go into more detail about this down here.

What to watch out for with ChatGPT

Like any new technology, we’ve got to use it with caution. We need to ask ourselves questions like:

• Can we trust the data?
• What is it telling me?
• How up-to-date is it?
• Does it have authority in this field?
• Does it have knowledge and experience in these topics?
• If not, where does it gain this knowledge from?

With ChatGPT specifically, there are a few things you need to know when using it in your marketing strategy: whatever your role. This applies when using ChatGPT for sales (and other departments) too.

1) It’s not one for timely information

With explicit prompts, ChatGPT accepts that it has a significant gap in knowledge because its training cutoff was back in September 2021.

What a throwback, hey?

If you think about how much has happened in the world since then, you’ll (hopefully) forever question the freshness and the general greatness of what ChatGPT serves up. This is particularly true in the world of content and search engine marketing, where we need to think about what customers are looking for right now – rather than 18 months ago.

Lessons learned: Remember to follow up, to be as explicit as possible, and that ChatGPT is just SO September 2021.

Given a recent (and rare) coronation in May 2023, we took the chance to ask ChatGPT a bit about the new King of the United Kingdom… to no avail. 

2) AI hallucinations

This leads on nicely to what we call ‘AI hallucinations’.

Despite sounding convincing, ChatGPT can often churn out content that is factually incorrect. This is partly to do with its training dating back to only September 2021, but also because it can easily misinterpret prompts.

Here’s just one example – Gerald asked ChatGPT to summarize this article from bbc.co.uk by inputting its URL with the relevant prompt:

What did ChatGPT come up with?

… a summary that is completely different to what the article is about. This is down to ChatGPT’s training dating back to September 2021, but also because the tool easily misinterprets prompts.

Just another thing to look out for.

3) It’s already changed the game in a significant way

Despite being new to the market, boy, has it changed the game. Since GPT-4 was released in March 2023, we’ve seen two big changes to two big players:

• Bing.com traffic increased 15%
• Google.com traffic is down 2.4%

2.4% might not seem like much, but when you’re Google and see 8.5 billion searches per day, that’s a significant amount of people. And that’s all because Bing partnered with ChatGPT, and was the only way to use (the faster, more reliable) GPT-4 for free, sending users in Bing’s direction.

Not only would this have a hand in Google’s decreased search market dominance, but Bing’s speed-to-market and releases of quick enhancements allowed Microsoft to also claim that the integration made Bing more powerful and accurate than Google Bard.

Will this see brands moving away from a Google-only strategy, and towards a ‘Google-first’ attitude that leads to money being pumped into other contenders like Bing? More than likely.

4) It should only be used as a support tool for SEO and PPC

And last but certainly not least: no, ChatGPT isn’t going to steal your job anytime soon. Instead, it’s there to help you with productivity and efficiency as a support tool.

Using simple and concise language, it can help you understand even the most challenging (or most boring) of topics. For those who know writers’ block well, ChatGPT can help get those creative juices flowing again with suggestions and inspiration.

The secret is for ChatGPT to be used alongside your own valuable resources; that being you lovely lot. You’re Batman, ChatGPT is – an emotionless version of – Robin.

5) Do NOT copy and paste ChatGPT

Now, this one’s super important – do not, whatever you do, just copy and paste ChatGPT and call it a day.

AI text has fingerprint-like traits. By that we mean, it’s obvious when it’s from AI and machine learning – obvious to your users, and obvious to search engines.

Mark Williams-Cook created a website filled with purely ChatGPT content to test this out. Whilst it saw a big increase in traffic, it plummeted (to zero!) when Google realized that the site was not offering unique and valuable content.

There are some tools out there, like QuillBot, that can rewrite text so it doesn’t look ChatGPT-like, but this is still risky as it’s just regenerated by another bot.

How to team up ChatGPT and Similarweb

Next up, we’ve got our section on how to use ChatGPT and Similarweb side-by-side to power UP those outputs and develop any underperforming sweet spots.

1) Get inspiration for copy

Right, let’s say you’re in research mode. You’re trying to promote your website that sells second hand cars, and you want to know everything you need to know to make that website rank and sell.

ChatGPT can (and will) give you a run-through of what you need to do to make that website rank well – you know, do your keyword research, your on and off-page optimization, your technical SEO, and boost your user experience, and so on.

But you want the specifics on what you actually need to work on within those tasks, not a list of your vague daily to-dos.

Enter: Similarweb Digital Marketing Intelligence with its in-depth insights and website analytics to fuel your SEO plan for your website selling second-hand cars.

The Keyword Generator will give you insight into the most searched keywords that you should be including in your website copy, and meta tags.

…along with the related keywords, found below. Yes, ChatGPT can also offer related keywords if you use the right prompt – but it lacks accurate data on things like search volume, yearly trend pattern, and zero-click searches which can really impact your strategy. In other words, it’s not a tool to use for keyword research.

The Similarweb Keyword Generator can also point you in the right direction of trending keywords, so you can hop on the trends – and gain more traffic – before your competitors do.

So, if you happen to actually sell second-hand cars in India, it looks like you’re onto a winner.

Use the results from our keyword generator to inspire and dictate the copy you have, direct your content at different points of the year, and keep on top of any trends that might pop up.

2) Keep an eye on competitors’ ad content

On top of nailing your content, you can keep an eye on your competitors and their content too.

Use Similarweb to peruse (/outright spy) on your competitors’ content, in a perfectly legit way.

Say Walmart is on your watch-list.

We’re happy to inform you that Walmart actually has some incredibly uninspiring and repetitive content in their search ads.

With the content, traffic share, search volume and top keyword (among other stuff), now you have your plan of attack – or know where to leverage your own content if you want to be all polite about it.

Head over to ChatGPT with some of the prompts you learnt earlier to get some fun and inspiring ideas for your ad copy. Simply specify the keywords you’d like to target and the character limit (but don’t forget to triple-check this) and let your creativity run wild with the results.

3) Know your audience

Knowing your audience and understanding their habits and preferences is key to search success.

Like we’ve said, our Keyword Generator supplies you with the exact keywords people are looking for, but it also tells us the popular pages they’re landing on. Here’s one example with Amazon.com and our fresh May 2023 data:

In fact, Similarweb can go into detail about the users that are visiting your competitors’ websites – you know, because they’re the ones you want too. Use our Demographics feature to rummage through exactly who to target, and who is contributing to these top keywords.

Next step: take this information and insight, and plug it into ChatGPT.  Why? Because with it you can develop an audience profile of users that use your product to make sure your content really resonates with them.

On top of that, you can get it to inspire your content for this specific stereotype:

Through the tool, you can develop an audience profile of users that use your product to make sure your content really resonates with them.

It will get you thinking about things like:

• Age groups
• Genders
• Buyer behaviors and preferences
• What exactly they’re searching for
• Stereotypical personality traits
• Budgets

If you’re comparing your company with another (like a Nintendo Switch and a Playstation 5, you can even request for this to be in table format as an output. This is super helpful to compare and contrast information, and having it all there in one place.

4) Add that extra layer of intelligence to competitors’ content

Now it’s time to add another layer of intelligence. Similarweb Digital Marketing Intelligence to be precise.

We provide – wait for it – the marketing intelligence you need to soar above the rest in your industry. Here is just one way we can help you get in the know about what your competitors are up to, and show them who’s boss:

Step 1: Log into Similarweb

Step 2: Discover what pages your competitors are winning on using Organic Pages

Step 3: Analyze what they’re doing, what works, and what catches your eye

Step 4: Inspire and improve your own content using these discoveries

Let’s look at Vogue as an example.

“Fragrance” is the most popular, non-seasonal page for Vogue. This is meaningful to analyze because what they’re doing isn’t something for a short-lived win. It gives you the chance to expand into more evergreen content; the type of content that keeps performing.

So, we can copy and paste this specific blog post into ChatGPT and ask it to pretend it’s a content marketing expert and to summarize the strengths and weaknesses of the post. You then take those strengths and implement them into your content strategy. Winner.

Vogue’s strength for this article was that it provides valuable insights on cologne. But its main weakness? It was too much about the author’s personal experience, therefore too biased to one entity.

Insights = good. Bias and unrelatable material = bad.

But you don’t just stop there. Ask more questions to inspire your writing to take these pros and cons into account. What about asking how a cologne expert would review the latest cologne?

Key takeaways

With so many examples and such a wealth of information, let’s go through the key takeaways of this post or the webinar – depending on your preference.

1. Please just don’t copy and paste from ChatGPT. Please.
2. ChatGPT is a perception – use it for support only.
3. The more information in your prompt, the better.
4. Get competitor strengths and weaknesses to inspire your own ideas.
5. Reveal competitor campaigns, their brand messaging, and keyword data using Similarweb Digital Marketing Intelligence and never look back.

To get on with number 5 and get a deeper analysis of your competitors today, check out our free trial.

FAQs

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is an advanced language model developed by OpenAI. It uses deep learning techniques to generate human-like responses to text prompts, making it a valuable tool for various applications, including search engine marketing (SEM).

How can ChatGPT be used in search engine marketing (SEM)?

ChatGPT can be used in SEM to assist marketers in tasks such as ad copywriting, comparing competitors, performance optimization, and generating creative ideas. It can also provide some valuable insights and suggestions to enhance SEM campaigns.

How do I use ChatGPT for ad copywriting?

To use ChatGPT for ad copywriting, provide it with a brief description of your product or service, target audience, and any specific messaging or unique selling points. Ask ChatGPT to generate ad headlines or full ad copy variations based on your inputs, then use this to help you brainstorm compelling and effective ad content.

What do I need to watch out for with ChatGPT?

ChatGPT has a few issues which is why it’s important you never just copy and paste from the tool. For one, it’s not good for timely information as it hasn’t been updated since September 2021. This links to what we call ‘AI hallucinations’, where ChatGPT sounds confident in a topic, however is actually misinterpreting the prompt completely. For these reasons (and the others provided in this post), you should only use it as a support tool for SEO and PPC.